Job Chapter 20
Zophar Talks about Vomit!!!
So often in the human experience, we think we are engaged in conversation only to realize that we are interrupting a monologue. If only we listened, actually listened to each other, we wouldn't have Active Listening classes. In The Ticket that Exploded, William S. Burroughs suggests that we just record our conversations and let our tape recorders talk. We could save a lot of time in needless arguments and party chatter. Have you tried having an adult conversation with your parents? How did that go? In their defense, your first years cooing and crying. When you finally could speak in complete sentences and form abstract thoughts, puberty hit. Your parents were either dealing with your mood swings or trying to pretend that you weren't masturbating. Now that you're an adult, they might treat you like an adult. Probably not. Best to stick to sports, the weather and that thing you did when you were five.
Fight Club suggests going to a terminal disease support group if you want anyone to actually listen, instead of waiting for you to stop talking. Definitely don't go to Zophar. Zophar is not listening. In fact, Zophar checked out of this conversation chapters ago. Bildad is actually responding to Job's words in a passive aggressive attack. Zophar ignored Job entirely. Job begs for pity. Zophar talks about villains running away from iron. Job cries about isolation. Zophar assures Job that bad people puke up their riches. Job says that G-d knows that he's innocent. Zophar informs Job that the godless will die and get flushed away like shit.
What is Zophar's point? Eliphaz is reassuring. Bildad is rude. Zophar is making a speech. Zophar is like the useless rabbis in A Serious Man who respond to the protagonist's pleas for guidance in a cruel world with lectures on kabala. He might sound profound in his own head, but in context he is not helping.
Even more hilarious is the fact that Zophar has been composing this speech since chapter 12. Zophar ended his first chapter by saying that the eyes of the wicked fail. Job responds with “you are sooooo smart and your words are soooooo profound” (I'm paraphrasing) and then told Zophar why he was an idiot. Apparently stewing about that exchange for eight chapters, Zophar is now ready to talk. And what is the first thing Zophar says? His feelings are hurt. He must talk because Job was mean to him. Also, the wicked to do suffer. Everyone knows that. Come on Job, why are you even arguing? Everyone knows that the wicked pay for their crimes.
Everybody knows that your hair and fingernails grow after you die. Everybody knows that the earth is the center of the universe and Mercury indeed goes in retrograde. Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows that the good guys lost.
Zopar is spewing crap, but it's amusing crap. Who doesn't want to think that evil doers will die like shit and disappear like dreams? Who doesn't want to think about the worst people paying for their crimes? Their children go begging, says Zophar. Imagine the most noxious privileged idiot. Now imagine that privileged idiot applying for food stamps after their family fortune disappears. Oh Zophar. You know how to please your audience.
If only generational wealth didn't exist. Anderson Cooper still benefits from the Vanderbilt fortune. Arafat's daughter lives in luxury. Bashar al-Assad was an optometrist before going into the mass murder family business. Haniyeh's children aren't about to give up their Qatar hotel suite. Harvard and Columbia Nazis will go on to inherit their family fortunes.
Even if the wicked pay, their victims still die. I already talked about that problem in Job chapter 16.
Then Zophar talks about vomit.
15He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again;
God shall cast them out of his belly.
16He shall suck the poison of asps;
The viper’s tongue shall slay him.
17He shall not look upon the rivers,
The flowing streams of honey and curd.
18That which he laboured for shall he give back, and shall not swallow it down;
(JPS translation)
Put those verses on a greeting card.
Or better yet, the next time a friend reaches out because they are going through tough times – death in the family, custody battle, sudden poverty – just photoshop Putin puking in an alleyway. They'll love it.
Finally Zophar ends his speech by saying that bad people will suffer. So there.
Happily Zophar stops talking after this chapter. Poor dumb Zophar. He wasn't nearly as toxic as Bildad or Eliphaz. But he was stupid.
If you need a writer or editor, please email me. If you enjoy this and like to support me, you can either spring for a paid subscription or to my gofundme.
For more Bible stuff, you can buy King David and the Spiders from Mars